BMC has no funds, but Rs 900 cr in dues

MUMBAI: Early this week, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) urged the state government to release about Rs 200 crore to replace water pipelines in the city dating back to the Colonial era. Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said the state would approach the Centre to earmark funds under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

Contrast this figure with the BMC's outstanding water dues of Rs 900 crore. It's a classic case of the civic body not improving its revenue receipts and expecting the Centre to help itself out.

Add to the outstanding dues, the water losses due to thefts and leakages. According to the latest statement released by the BMC, the total dues are pegged at Rs 901 crore. Of these, Rs 534 crore are due in form of water charges.

Outstanding with various government organisations are Rs 127 crore while private properties account for Rs 234 crores.

But Additional Municipal Commissioner Manu Kumar Srivastav, who is in-charge of the civic water supply, does not see this as a big hole in the BMC's water budget.

"Of these dues, we are worried most about the funds held up due to pending court cases. There are outstanding dues from the various government agencies but this figure, if not cleared during one fiscal, is rolled over to the next," he told ET.

The civic body also has high bad debts amounting to nearly Rs 597 crore, a provision that was created at the behest of the World Bank. Although Mr Srivastav expects to recover nearly 90% of the dues by the next audit, he feels that the figure for outstanding dues would still hover around the 900 crore mark due to the rolling nature of charges incurred by the civic authority every year.

In addition to the high outstanding dues, the BMC has seen a rise in the losses due to water leakages, thefts and illegal connections. Official figures quote 2713 cases of water leakages in the city.

367 cases were registered against illegal connections. The island city has recorded 181 cases, while for the central suburbs the figures stood at 104. The city also recorded as many as 364 cases for connections cuts.

"A majority of pipelines are 90 years old and the MS pipes are fast corroding, causing water losses due to leakages. Moreover, nearly 20-23% is unaccounted loss which is incurred at the level of treating water at its original source."

The permissible global limit for unaccounted loss is 15% and Singapore happens to be the world leader with 6%. The BMC has set aside a Rs 356 crore project for replacement of old pipelines in the city, he said. BMC officials said that the project entails corrective measure for water supply spread over 300 kms across the city.

In addition, the civic authority is contemplating a comprehensive water audit, for which the BMC has already started inviting financial bids. Says Mr Srivastav, "As far as thefts are concerned, these happen in areas where there are unauthorised slums, which have no statutory protection." The BMC is planning a bulk supply scheme to slums to prevent such thefts in the near future.

BMC officials told ET that about 20-25 kms of bulk supply pipeline is under progress, where the slums are given bigger pipelines and subsequently divided into households, a number of individual connections have been cut off already to this effect.

The BMC admits to a shortfall in water supply in wards P and R which cover areas from Goregaon to Dahisar in the western suburbs. "The shortage has nothing to do with old pipelines. We are supplying 3200m litres of water per day which is less than the demand, hence the shortfall. But it's not a serious deficit," he said.